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Apoorv Darshan
Apoorv Darshan

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Screenshotting a locked iPhone over Wi-Fi (after AirPlay betrayed me)

#indiehackers #webdev

My first attempt at cable-free iPhone capture went AirPlay-mirror -> ScreenCaptureKit. It worked until it didn't: on macOS Tahoe, the mirrored window blacks out the moment a capture context goes active. Dead end.

So TetherShot's Wi-Fi mode now goes a layer deeper, through Apple's developer-services RemoteXPC tunnel (via pymobiledevice3).

What that buys you:

  • Cable-free captures over your local network
  • Works even when the phone is locked
  • A real framebuffer grab at full 1179x2556 (not a compressed mirror)
  • No sudo per capture — a tiny root tunneld LaunchDaemon keeps the tunnel alive

Setup is a one-time USB pairing plus Developer Mode. After that, the wire stays home.

npm install -g tethershot
tethershot install
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

It's a tiny macOS menu-bar app: screenshots land in a folder you pick and copy to your clipboard. Local-first, no account, no telemetry, MIT open source.

Built and tested on macOS 26 (Tahoe) + iOS 26.

Repo: https://github.com/apoorvdarshan/TetherShot

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